If the unthinkable happened - We finish outside the top 4
Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:39 pmOk so things don't look so rosey right now. We are leaking silly goals and lost to a team whom we beat 5-0 last season. We have dropped 6 points already and despite showing good spirit against Bolton on the weekend there are still some serious underlying problems. Before anyone starts saying yes but the other teams will drop points, well maybe but you cannot hedge your bets on other teams dropping points. We all sat here last season saying Utd will drop points against this team eventually but the 
still manage to pull through in the end.
I look around at the other 'Top 4' teams and even City and Spurs and they all seem to have more strength in depth that us. What would happen if we sustained injuries to some of our key players? Although it's only 3 games in Lucas and Babel have already shown they have not improved 1 iota since last season and Dossena will probably show the same the next time he plays. I have a real fear that if this trend continues we can drop out of the top 4 this season. And it's not like we can rely on winning in Europe to guarantee our CL place next season either.
Would the owners sell some players to make up interest payments? If so they they may well cover the interest but then it really would be a downward spiral from then on in. And if that happened how would we get back into the top 4 without further investment in the team. Once you get into the top 4 you have that big money coming in each year as well as money from Europe so the owners would have to put in a hell of a lot to get us back up. And if they can't give Rafa the extra he needs now how on earth would we expect them to if the worst happened?
It was imperative that we brought in some quality players this summer to build on last year. We have an improvment over Arby with Johnson but there is still a question mark over whether Aquilani is good enough. We were supposed to shift the deadwood and bring in some better ones but we havn't. We are stuck with the same bargain basement bunch of players that would not get into any of the top 4 sides (top 6 if you include City and Spurs).
How on earth do the fans expect us to even challange for the league with this sort of squad? The difference between us and Utd last year was that Utd didn't need their best 11 to win each game where as we did. Come this season and we still don't have anyone outside our best 11 whom I would feel confident in. Add this to the fact that our owners don't seem to be budging on selling club we potentially have quite a situation on our hands. I really feel this year will be Rafas hardest to date in his entire career and we will be walking a tight rope if the players don't step up their performances soon. This probably sounds like a bit of a kneejerk reaction but considering this is pretty much the same side that beat Utd 4-1 away, Madrid 5-0 on aggregate and Villa 5-0 scares me when you look at how we have been playing recently.
Something needs to change otherwise we are bang in trouble.
still manage to pull through in the end. I look around at the other 'Top 4' teams and even City and Spurs and they all seem to have more strength in depth that us. What would happen if we sustained injuries to some of our key players? Although it's only 3 games in Lucas and Babel have already shown they have not improved 1 iota since last season and Dossena will probably show the same the next time he plays. I have a real fear that if this trend continues we can drop out of the top 4 this season. And it's not like we can rely on winning in Europe to guarantee our CL place next season either.
Would the owners sell some players to make up interest payments? If so they they may well cover the interest but then it really would be a downward spiral from then on in. And if that happened how would we get back into the top 4 without further investment in the team. Once you get into the top 4 you have that big money coming in each year as well as money from Europe so the owners would have to put in a hell of a lot to get us back up. And if they can't give Rafa the extra he needs now how on earth would we expect them to if the worst happened?
It was imperative that we brought in some quality players this summer to build on last year. We have an improvment over Arby with Johnson but there is still a question mark over whether Aquilani is good enough. We were supposed to shift the deadwood and bring in some better ones but we havn't. We are stuck with the same bargain basement bunch of players that would not get into any of the top 4 sides (top 6 if you include City and Spurs).
How on earth do the fans expect us to even challange for the league with this sort of squad? The difference between us and Utd last year was that Utd didn't need their best 11 to win each game where as we did. Come this season and we still don't have anyone outside our best 11 whom I would feel confident in. Add this to the fact that our owners don't seem to be budging on selling club we potentially have quite a situation on our hands. I really feel this year will be Rafas hardest to date in his entire career and we will be walking a tight rope if the players don't step up their performances soon. This probably sounds like a bit of a kneejerk reaction but considering this is pretty much the same side that beat Utd 4-1 away, Madrid 5-0 on aggregate and Villa 5-0 scares me when you look at how we have been playing recently.
Something needs to change otherwise we are bang in trouble.
Although if we continue to pick up points the way we have been so far I think xmas would seem a long way off.